Comcast ordered to pay $9.1 million fine for violating Washington’s consumer protection laws

A Washington State judge has ruled that Comcast violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act more than 445,000 times by charging customers for a Service Protection Plan (SPP) without their consent. Recorded sales calls showed that Comcast enrolled customers in the SPP even when they explicitly rejected the offer. In addition to refunding customers, Comcast must pay a $9.1 million fine, a fraction of the $83 million asked for by the Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson.

“Call recordings produced by Comcast show that over one third of Washington SPP customer accounts subscribed via telephone were subscribed to the plan without their consent between July 2014 and June 2016,” wrote King County Superior Court Judge Timothy Bradshaw.

Cable companies Comcast and Charter are the only broadband choice — at the FCC’s 25/3 Mbps definition — for a combined 68 million Americans and rarely compete with one another.

Links:

Comcast broke law 445,000 times in scheme to inflate bills, judge finds (Ars Technica, Jun. 7, 2019)

Comcast, Charter dominate US; telcos “abandoned rural America,” report says (Ars Technica, July 31, 2018)